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As it appears that there is no common FAQ about general software-ish questions, I'll ask it here: What do I need to watch Blu-ray on Windows XP and get the output to a 5.1 speaker system? I have: -C2D E4300 running at 2.4 GHz -Nvidia 9800GT -Windows XP -CRT monitor and Panasonic PT-AE700 720p projector -SB Audigy2 connected to Creative 5.1 analog speaker system (T5900 with completely different front satellites and original front satellites as rear satellites) What I'm planning on getting: -A BD-ROM/HD-DVD combo drive or just bd-rom-drive -HD playback software Questions: The Nvidia control panel reports that HDCP link is OK for the projector, so all I need to figure out is that the playback software can convert the sound from 8 to 6 channels without downsampling as the sound card can handle the frequencies. I guess that this requires the platinum/ultimate versions of either WinDVD or PowerDVD or is there another option for HD playback? Currently I'm using MPC for DVD playback. Rosoboronexport fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Oct 18, 2009 |
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Oct 18, 2009 15:31
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Dijkstra posted:drat, that looks cool. As soon as flash 10.1 hits the streets and it looks like the GPU acceleration works correctly, I'll get one. Oh god I hope Flash 10.1 does what it's supposed to. The pure CPU dependency of Flash is such a god drat drag.
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Oct 18, 2009 17:25
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TheScott2K posted:Oh god I hope Flash 10.1 does what it's supposed to. The pure CPU dependency of Flash is such a god drat drag. It's sad really, I finally got all the pretty backdrops installed in Aeon and showed some people. Explained it's got a normal linux desktop behind it so it has a browser and internet too for whatever reason you might want etc. "Oh so you can watch Hulu and Youtube also!" "Err... not really..."
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Oct 18, 2009 18:05
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TheScott2K posted:Oh god I hope Flash 10.1 does what it's supposed to. The pure CPU dependency of Flash is such a god drat drag. There's no telling how many AV nerds are sitting around with an extra $300-400 to spend on a HTPC system once flash can be properly accelerated. It's literally been the only thing keeping me on the sidelines for the past couple of years.
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Oct 18, 2009 23:50
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I was in my local PC store the other day and spotted one of these ASRock 330 products: http://www.asrock.com/nettop/overview.asp?Model=ION%20330 Looks like a good replacement to the ageing laptop I've got connected to my LCD. The biggest issue that I've had with the laptop (and one of the old PCs I tried) is that it refused to output exactly 1360x768 over VGA. So can someone confirm whether this setting is available? Oh, and will the Atom 330 cope with 720p mkvs? KingEup fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Oct 19, 2009 |
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Oct 19, 2009 10:23
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Regnevelc posted:Hmm, I'll have to run that, do you know where the script is? http://code.google.com/p/xbmcupdate/ One of the most useful tools I found while setting mine up.
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Oct 19, 2009 15:38
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strayan posted:I was in my local PC store the other day and spotted one of these ASRock 330 products: http://www.asrock.com/nettop/overview.asp?Model=ION%20330 I would imagine you can have it output whatever resolution you need, though I've not heard of anybody trying that specific one. As far as its capabilities, the Atom isn't going to be able to do much with HD content, but the ION chipset in it can decode 1080p content just fine as long as whatever you're using supports hardware decoding for the codec the video was encoded with. Most MKV files have H.264 video (though they don't have to) and that's supported by most hardware-accelerated players. The point of the ION platform as an HTPC is to get a cheap CPU to handle the interface and audio decoding and a cheap GPU to handle video decoding instead of having to get an expensive CPU to do both.
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Oct 19, 2009 17:23
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Kreeblah posted:Most MKV files have H.264 video (though they don't have to) and that's supported by most hardware-accelerated players. Is there a list of these hardware accelerated players anywhere?
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Oct 19, 2009 21:29
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strayan posted:I was in my local PC store the other day and spotted one of these ASRock 330 products: http://www.asrock.com/nettop/overview.asp?Model=ION%20330 Using ubuntu... they run them like a loving breeze. Bigsteve posted:http://code.google.com/p/xbmcupdate/ Does this work with ubuntu? Regnevelc fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Oct 20, 2009 |
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Oct 20, 2009 00:23
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Regnevelc posted:Does this work with ubuntu? I'm thinking no  Edit - It's pretty easy to use PPA though : https://edge.launchpad.net/%7Eteam-xbmc-svn/+archive Legdiian fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Oct 20, 2009 |
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Oct 20, 2009 04:14
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Excuse me if this has been asked before, but are the XBMC devs even considering adding GPU-offloading support to the Windows version? I'd like for my HTPC to be able to play some of my less-intensive games, and right now it'd be a choice between Windows (games) and Linux (XBMC). Edit: OK, I see there was a big discussion about it on the previous page, but not on whether it's in the pipeline. Quixzlizx fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 20, 2009 |
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Oct 20, 2009 21:24
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Quixzlizx posted:Excuse me if this has been asked before, but are the XBMC devs even considering adding GPU-offloading support to the Windows version? I'd like for my HTPC to be able to play some of my less-intensive games, and right now it'd be a choice between Windows (games) and Linux (XBMC). I set up MPC as an external player it works great in Windows. Just one extra click to bring up the context menu and run it basically as part of XBMC.
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Oct 21, 2009 02:10
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Quixzlizx posted:Excuse me if this has been asked before, but are the XBMC devs even considering adding GPU-offloading support to the Windows version? I'd like for my HTPC to be able to play some of my less-intensive games, and right now it'd be a choice between Windows (games) and Linux (XBMC). Yes, it's actually under development right now and you can get it in SVN versions, IIRC. I don't think it's too stable yet, though.
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Oct 21, 2009 02:37
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Thermopyle posted:Yes, it's actually under development right now and you can get it in SVN versions, IIRC. I don't think it's too stable yet, though. Thanks for the info. I'm OK with waiting, as long as there's something to actually wait for.
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Oct 21, 2009 15:24
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Thermopyle posted:Yes, it's actually under development right now and you can get it in SVN versions, IIRC. I don't think it's too stable yet, though. No, it isn't under development or in SVN as far as I know. Hardware acceleration is only supported under Linux in XBMC and it works just fine. There are plans to have it on Windows, but no work has been done on it as of yet.
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Oct 21, 2009 15:28
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evilalien posted:No, it isn't under development or in SVN as far as I know. Hardware acceleration is only supported under Linux in XBMC and it works just fine. There are plans to have it on Windows, but no work has been done on it as of yet. Work is being done, but it still is experimental, not by the main team and unsupported/unstable If he really wants it now then he needs to get a build that supports an external player. as it's bound to work a lot better. http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=35452 unsupported builds link. Look for DX builds if you are adventurous.
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Oct 21, 2009 15:51
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I'm looking for a sub $100-$150 video card that will push along my 1080p, isn't as loud as a 747 jet, HDMI out (or at least with an adapter), and will fit in a Antec NSK2480. Any recommendations? Other specs: Athlon 64 X2 Dual 5000+ 2.61 GHz, 2 gigs of ram, GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H, Integrated ATI Radeon HD3200-based graphics
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Oct 21, 2009 15:51
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Ryokurin posted:Work is being done, but it still is experimental, not by the main team and unsupported/unstable If he really wants it now then he needs to get a build that supports an external player. as it's bound to work a lot better. The dx builds just render stuff in direcx; it has nothing to do with hardware acceleration of video. If that isn't what you were referring to, then could you point me to some changes in trac or some forum thread? I'm interested in seeing how far this has progressed.
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Oct 21, 2009 16:07
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evilalien posted:No, it isn't under development or in SVN as far as I know. Hardware acceleration is only supported under Linux in XBMC and it works just fine. There are plans to have it on Windows, but no work has been done on it as of yet. I was under the impression that the whole point of dx was to work towards dxva.
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Oct 21, 2009 17:15
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Thermopyle posted:I was under the impression that the whole point of dx was to work towards dxva. The whole point was to take advantage of better direcx driver support in Windows and to potentially be able to implement DXVA support in the future. There is currently no work being done on DXVA support.
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Oct 21, 2009 17:35
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The specific reason for hardware acceleration for XBMC being available under linux is because VDPAU is *nix-specific. A couple of other major linux-based apps have added VDPAU support recently as well, most notably mplayer and mythtv DXVA is a whole different beast.
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Oct 21, 2009 20:49
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evilalien posted:The whole point was to take advantage of better direcx driver support in Windows and to potentially be able to implement DXVA support in the future. There is currently no work being done on DXVA support. Well, we're mostly on the same page then. I know there's no actual DXVA code, I just meant the foundations are being set...that it's something that the devs are aware of. I never meant you could go out there and download some sort of DXVA support right now.
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Oct 21, 2009 21:48
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Someone is working on a DirectShow player and there is currently a preliminary patch in the XBMC Trac system. From what I've seen it still isn't anywhere near ready for real use but it is being worked on.
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Oct 22, 2009 01:38
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The_Franz posted:Someone is working on a DirectShow player and there is currently a preliminary patch in the XBMC Trac system. From what I've seen it still isn't anywhere near ready for real use but it is being worked on. I managed to dig this up: http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=59610 It looks like it is coming along nicely. It isn't being done by a standard XBMC dev so he will be free to focus on this alone which is nice.
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Oct 22, 2009 12:52
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Thermopyle posted:Well, we're mostly on the same page then. I know there's no actual DXVA code, I just meant the foundations are being set...that it's something that the devs are aware of. I never meant you could go out there and download some sort of DXVA support right now. ... Thermopyle posted:Yes, it's actually under development right now and you can get it in SVN versions, IIRC. I don't think it's too stable yet, though. You could be pendantic about "under development" if you want, but it's clear to everyone else that you were mistaken. Personally I'd rather see a DirectShow player than the addition of DXVA to XBMC. I'd like to see both, really, but I'd like the ability to select my own codecs.
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Oct 23, 2009 00:47
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A buddy is giving me an old computer with these components. Will this run XBMC and put out 1080p without a problem? P4 3.2GHZ Extreme ASUS P4GPL-X motherboard 2GB DDR RAM MSI 9500GT (lovely old version 256mb memory, hdmi out and hdcp compliant though). Hoping it will since it'll save me a purchase.
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Oct 23, 2009 14:14
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corded ware culture posted:A buddy is giving me an old computer with these components. Will this run XBMC and put out 1080p without a problem? Only if you use linux. That CPU is ancient.
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Oct 23, 2009 14:24
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evilalien posted:Only if you use linux. That CPU is ancient. I was planning on that, I know it wouldn't work well with the P4 handling the load. Hopefully it works out.
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Oct 23, 2009 14:26
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corded ware culture posted:A buddy is giving me an old computer with these components. Will this run XBMC and put out 1080p without a problem? It'll suck quite a bit of power too.
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Oct 23, 2009 14:26
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TheScott2K posted:... What I typed could be construed as mistaken. Despite your eagerness to jump on the "haha, he messed up"-train what I meant was not mistaken. My second quote was trying to clarify what I meant.
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Oct 23, 2009 23:01
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Critique this HTPC, please. I thought about the Asrock 330 nettop, but I wanted something with front USB ports, and I don't really need a DVD player (though I may add one in the future): ASUS AT3N7A-I Intel Atom 330 (1M Cache, 1.6GHz, Dual-Core) NVIDIA ION Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail $159.99 hec Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC 7K09 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case - Retail $54.99 Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 996529 - Retail $44.99 I'll be adding a 1TB WD Caviar Green drive that I already own, plus a MCE remote for control. Mostly just for playing digital media, photo slideshows, etc. Some 1080p WMV and h.264 stuff, mostly 720p xvids. XBMC liveCD for frontend. Look decent, or should I consider a C2D and MicroATX board with onboard HDMI?
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Oct 25, 2009 02:49
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FogHelmut posted:I'm looking for a sub $100-$150 video card that will push along my 1080p, isn't as loud as a 747 jet, HDMI out (or at least with an adapter), and will fit in a Antec NSK2480. Any recommendations? Are the integrated graphics not good enough for you? I have that same chip and motherboard in my bedroom HTPC and it plays 1080p content with GPU accelerated decoding just fine. In my main HTPC that motherboard and integrated graphics decode blu-ray and HD-DVD discs too without a problem.
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Oct 25, 2009 10:14
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According to ArsTechnica, Hulu is headed toward building a paywall. While it seems awful that they want to charge for a lower-quality version of content that you can pull in with an OTA tuner that you can only view on a browser (PlayOn is a great hack, but it's a hack), I think it could actually prove to be a good thing. A hard enough flop could wake the networks up to the reality of what people expect on the internet.PitViper posted:[...] I keep seeing people cite 720p Xvids. Are you making these yourself or what? It's been my understanding that Xvid has been dead as an HD format since like 2006.
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Oct 25, 2009 14:42
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mod sassinator posted:Are the integrated graphics not good enough for you? I have that same chip and motherboard in my bedroom HTPC and it plays 1080p content with GPU accelerated decoding just fine. In my main HTPC that motherboard and integrated graphics decode blu-ray and HD-DVD discs too without a problem. 1080p works if it's encoded well. I just want to power through poor encoding. A friend suggested a Radeon 4350, which are pretty cheap and can be had without a fan.
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Oct 25, 2009 19:07
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TheScott2K posted:I keep seeing people cite 720p Xvids. Are you making these yourself or what? It's been my understanding that Xvid has been dead as an HD format since like 2006. Actually, nm. I checked, and they're just standard-def Xvids from an HD source. Nothing special, I just use them because my current DVD player plays xvid/divx, but not h.264. I'd just like to know if anyone else has any experience with this particular board. I've had good luck with Asus for ATX boards in the past, but the reviews for this particular board/CPU combo seem less than stellar. If anyone has a better suggestion for a low-power board/CPU combo for a quiet-as-possible settop box, I'd love other suggestions 
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Oct 25, 2009 23:24
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Can someone recommend me a sub 100$ wireless keyboard for my HTPC?
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Oct 26, 2009 21:02
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PitViper posted:ASUS AT3N7A-I Intel Atom 330 (1M Cache, 1.6GHz, Dual-Core) NVIDIA ION Motherboard/CPU Combo - Retail $159.99 I have this and would guess that it's at least as good as the other boards using the same chips. My only gripe is that apparently ASUS told several reviewers that the 6400 RPM noisy fan would be replaced with a more quiet fan in the packages sold to consumers. The fan that shipped with mine with is the loud one that was supposed to have been replaced. Fortunately, you can call the ASUS RMA department and request the replacement fan. I haven't gotten mine yet, but it should be arriving soon. Hopefully that will be a sufficient reduction because it really is too loud as is.
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Oct 27, 2009 05:02
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I've heard about the fan noise issue, but I'm not too concerned about it. The PC will be pretty well baffled from the front in the stand, the venting is mostly to the back. The Zotac board is supposed to run quieter, so that's an option as well. I don't really need the wireless, and I'd prefer not having another power brick. I can always fab up a duct and quieter fan in the case as well.
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Oct 27, 2009 05:52
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bobzmuda posted:Acer's Aspire Revo 3600 is hitting the shelves soon for $330. If you're looking at the Asrock Ion, also consider this unit. Any idea when this will be released?
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Oct 27, 2009 13:05
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ASSTASTIC posted:Can someone recommend me a sub 100$ wireless keyboard for my HTPC? I have had pretty good luck with my Rocketfish™ - Wireless Multimedia Bluetooth Keyboard from Best Buy. $89 and it seems to have pretty good range. Also available in black.
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Oct 27, 2009 13:54
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